I think everything will change. Maybe not always for the better immediately, but the way this team acts, thinks, plays, markets itself, communicates with the fans and deals with the media will all totally change from the last 16 seasons of muckety, neurotic, self-defeating inertia.

Advertisement

—-the column/

This was always Larry Ellison’s race to win, and he does like to win.

So this could be his moment of truth.

The Oracle billionaire has the money to buy the Warriors, obviously. He could purchase the Warriors, 10 other franchises and three battleships, if he wanted to. (I hope he doesn’t want to.)

He has whatever fervent mindset it takes to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into winning the America’s Cup.

He already has his company’s name on the arena. For years, he has been a mega-owner-in-waiting.

And Ellison has always been the man most likely to turn the Warriors into the glamorous, powerful franchise their fans deserve.

From cratering Chris Cohan to ferocious Larry Ellison… that’d be more than a shock to the system, that’s a practically a Big Bang.

If it happens.

As seems clearer now than ever, this Warriors’ sale process was cagily set up to spotlight Ellison’s final, inevitable winning bid, if he chose to make it.

As long suspected, everybody else is a background player. Ellison, who reportedly has joined forces with the Warriors’ 20-percent minority partners, is the star of this show until he decides he isn’t the star.

Everybody waits for him. No one, except him, knows what Ellison will do or how high he will go or if he’ll reach a breaking point and dramatically depart the bidding.

But we do wait for him.

There was no sale announcement Tuesday, after reports from a Sports Business Journal reporter and the Bay Area News Group’s Marcus Thompson II that a deal could be imminent.

A spokesperson for Ellison declined comment Tuesday when asked about the Warriors’ situation.

But it’s probably safe to asume that Ellison, the minority partners and auctioneer Sal Galatioto were in negotiations, to the possible exclusion of other bidders such as Mark Mastrov, the 24-Hour founder.

And it’s very safe to say that Cohan and Galatioto maneuvered this entire process to prod the best possible final offer out of Ellison, who has always been the NBA’s favored candidate but has no desire to bid against himself.

It’s interesting then, that this news bubbled out during the owners meetings in Las Vegas, which Cohan attended.

Look at the timing: Assuming it’ll take a few weeks at least for formal league approval of an Ellison 80-percent controlling purchase, if a sale agreement happens this week, Ellison could be officially installed two full months before training camp.

If he and the minority partners want to clean house, and I strongly believe that they do, they’d have plenty of time to put together a new executive team and basketball staff.

I believe that Jerry West, who has had dealings with Ellison in the past, will be asked to join as a power-consultant, and that former Phoenix executive David Griffin would be a top candidate to run the day-to-day operations.

Yes, I believe that coach Don Nelson will be shown the door. His $6-million gift salary for the coming season was already factored into the bidding.

The timing is right for this to happen now—a little faster than expected–and it wouldn’t be shocking to learn that Stern helped prod it.

If Cohan is going to sell, and Ellison remains the No. 1 option to buy, and if the Ellison group wants any say on further moves this summer, why not eliminate another few weeks of bargaining and cut to the final round right now?

If Ellison and other top bidders want to explore moving the team to a site near San Francisco’s AT&T Park, why not start that process as quickly as possible, too?

Now it’s a matter of finding the right price and finding the bidder that will meet it. And that’s why you have closed rooms, final negotiations and radio silence.

This has ben building since last year, when Ellison’s first bid of $315 million for the team was rejected, and accelerated in March when Cohan finally and officially put the team up for sale.

This is the moment of truth for both Ellison and Cohan. Which leads to the hush and the tension.

It will be either Ellison, or another bidder–maybe a surprise bidder? This could be decided right here, right now.

And the quieter it gets around the final negotiations, the more you can picture Ellison staring at the finish line, frantically calculating exactly what it’ll take to win.

But for not a dollar or a day more.

Tim Kawakami

Post navigation

I have known some truly quality people in my time on this planet. I have had the pleasure of knowing a handful of philanthropists. I have known members of the Flying Doctors. I know people with top notch resumes, Ph.D.s and J.D.s who work as Civil Servants because they feel they do more “good” there than in the private sector. I know Loaves and Fishes Volunteers, YMCA volunteers, and even SPCA volunteers. More so, I know good people, just average people by vocation or economic status that will always say hello with a smile no matter how tough their lives may be. I have tremendous admiration for these people and in my mind, I like to call them “Quality Human Beings.” They are people that make the world a better place, merely by their existence.